Zac Brown Band capped the first night of its Southern Ground Music & Food Festival at the Lawn at Riverfront Park Friday night with a more than two-hour set riddled with radio hits, sometimes feverish musical jams and special guests that range from kid stars to stadium headliners.

The Nashville city skyline served as a backdrop for the Zac Brown Band’s intricate stage, and the band’s Ferris wheel provided some mood lighting for the evening that members kicked off with “Jump Right In.”

Brown took a moment to welcome fans to the second annual festival in Nashville, and then followed up with hits including “Keep Me in Mind” and “Toes” as fans looked on from a variety of places in the park including a grassy hill, an open field and if they had the right tickets, even from the stage.

Kenny Rogers was Brown’s first guest and a late addition to the festival’s lineup. Rogers, a 2013 inductee into the Country Music Hall of Fame and a fellow Georgia resident like Brown, sang his early hit “Just Dropped In” and later cracked a joke that he wanted the band members “to see what the ’60s were really like.”

Brown grinned broadly as Rogers continued to address the audience of thousands.

“I’ll just tell you, the good things they do outweigh the bad ones,” Rogers again joked with the crowd.

He sang “The Gambler” before leaving the stage.

Lennon and Maisy Stella, the sister actresses that portray Connie Britton’s character’s daughters on “Nashville,” were brought on stage next to perform “Ho Hey.” The Stella family has been traveling with the Zac Brown Band recently, and Brown brought the girls’ parents out to sing, too. The duo, known as The Stellas, covered Paul Simon’s “Slip Sliddin’ Away,” before Brown sweetly hugged 9-year-old Maisy and the family left the stage.

Amos Lee, who collaborated with Zac Brown Band on their current album “Uncaged,” unexpectedly showed up to perform with the group. Jason Mraz, who was an announced guest, brought Lennon & Maisy back out to help perform his song “I Won’t Give Up.”

“This is the night of my dreams,” Brown told the audience, “with all these incredible artists here tonight and all of you to share it with.”

Over the course of the evening, the band found time to play plenty more of its hits including “Sweet Annie,” “Goodbye in Her Eyes,” and “Colder Weather” in addition to a cover of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”

Brown saved the most popular guest – Kenny Chesney – for nearly the end of the night. The former tour mates performed Brown’s “Knee Deep” and a version of Tom Petty’s “Runnin’ Down a Dream.”

The band encored with their song “Uncaged,” which they played dressed in glow-in-the-dark masks and skeleton costumes, as well as a speedy cover of Charlie Daniels’ “Devil Went Down to Georgia.”

Fireworks filled the sky, reflecting off the Pinnacle building, after the show ended as fans made their way out of the park.

Click on the photo above to see a gallery from Day 1 of the 2012 festival. Here, people watch Zac Brown Band performs from The Lawn at Riverfront Park on day two of the Southern Ground Music & Food Festival in Nashville, Tenn on Saturday Sept. 22, 2012. (Photo by Shelley Mays/The Tennessean)

After years of playing music festivals, members of the Zac Brown Band got tired of corn dogs, turkey legs and shish kebabs. Fiddle player Jimmy De Martini said every venue they played had the same menu of smothered, greasy and fried.

“The crowd would be there and the music would be there, but you would see the same type of food walking around at every festival, and people were charging an arm and a leg for chili cheese fries,” De Martini said. “It’s not that that’s bad food, but you want more of a variety.”

The desire for something different drove the band, headed by foodie and restaurant owner Zac Brown, to cook up a music festival of its own.

The event joins some of the most popular names in music, including Kenny Chesney, Jason Mraz, Grace Potter and John Fogerty, with celebrity and local chefs who serve cuisine without sticks, buns or breading. The event caters to fans with a wide range of tastes and budgets.

“We always want (to keep our ticket prices affordable),” De Martini said. “The more people, the more fun we’re going to have, the more fun the other bands are going to have and the more fun the other people are going to have. It’s just more fun for everybody.”

Food trucks, fine dining

Remaining tickets start at $99 and go up to $499 for a Foodie Experience ticket that features access to demonstrations, samplings and beer pairings on Saturday from nationally recognized chefs, including James Beard Award winner and “Top Chef” champion Stephanie Izard, Food & Wine’s best new chef Giuseppe Tentori, and Chicago beer sommelier Gary Valentine.

An improving Willie Nelson will make his festival date this Saturday in Nashville, after all, and he's bringing a friend.

A news release from festival organizers said Nelson has recuperated enough from a shoulder injury that he's able to keep his evening slot at the Zac Brown Band's Southern Ground Music & Food Festival. Warren Haynes will sit in with Nelson and his band for a handful of songs as well.

Nelson pulled out of the festival and postponed three other dates earlier this week after doctor's advised him to rest his shoulder for a week. The missed dates in Michigan, Indiana and Illinois are being rescheduled.

At the moment there are no women inside the Top 10 on Billboard’s country airplay chart and only three female vocalists rank inside the Top 25.

But radio’s penchant for male voices isn’t reflected in the nominations for the 47th annual CMA Awards.

The two leading nominees are female – Taylor Swift and newcomer Kacey Musgraves each picked up six nominations when they were announced this morning in New York City. In addition, Miranda Lambert has five nominations and Carrie Underwood, who will co-host the show with Brad Paisley, has three nominations.

Musgraves tweeted that the nominations are "six great reasons to get out of bed today."

Swift was equally excited.

"6 CMA NOMINATIONS!!!!!! ALBUM AND ENTERTAINER!!!," she tweeted following the nominations announcement. "What an excellent way to start the day. Thank you, guys. And thank you CMA. #CMAawards.

Swift was listed in categories including entertainer of the year, album of the year and female vocalist of the year with the last two pitting her against Musgraves. Musgraves, who released her debut album this year “Same Trailer Different Park,” is also named in the single of the year category and in pitted against herself in the song of the year category having written her hit “Merry Go Round” and Miranda Lambert’s “Mama’s Broken Heart”—both of which are mentioned under the heading.

The festival is Sept. 27-28 at the Lawn at Riverfront Park. A super set will close each night of performances and will include sit-ins from Jason Mraz and Chesney on Friday night and John Fogerty on Saturday night. More names will be added to the super sets as the event gets closer.

In addition to the genre-bending music stars that have signed on to participate in the festival, some of the brightest names in the culinary world will also be on hand to create their signature dishes for audiences. Chefs Stephanie Izard, Giuseppe Tentori and Shon Foster will cook up a menu including Sloppy Goat sandwiches, Oyster PoBoy Sliders, and s'mores with dark chocolate and bacon. Beer sommelier Gary Valentine will offer beer pairings for signature dishes and other festival favorites.

Tickets for the event are already sold out at some price points, but those still available range from $79-$499, the latter of which is for the Saturday foodie experience. That ticket includes celebrity chef cooking demonstrations and samplings, craft beer pairings, s’mores school with chef Shon Foster and admission to the VIP Foodie Tent.

Fans go wild as Eric Church performs at LP Field for the first nightly concert at the 2013 CMA Music Festival on Thursday. (Photo Larry McCormack/The Tennessean)

Music fans who made it to Nashville in June to attend CMA Music Festival will get the chance to relive some of their favorite moments when the three-hour television special “CMA Music Festival: Country's Night to Rock” airs 7 p.m. Monday Aug. 12 on ABC.

When asked about the idea for the human catapult in their "Jump Right In" video, the band pointed fingers directly to Zac Brown.

“I have a machine shop,” Brown said. “We make knives and other stuff like human catapults.”

He said he used to joke with people at his first restaurant that he’d someday have a human catapult for tossing folks into the lake.

“I have made it,” he said.

As for the upcoming Southern Ground Music & Food Festival to be held in Nashville Sept. 27-28, Brown said he wanted the lineup of performers to be eclectic.
“Selfishly we called all my favorite bands,” he said.

11:45 p.m.: Zac Brown nonchalantly walks out on stage as if 40,000 people hadn’t been waiting all night to see him play, and with his band launches into their first hit, “Chicken Fried.”

At this point in the evening, much of the audience has been in its seat for five hours, but they have their hands in the air and are up dancing along as fiddle player Jimmy De Martini glides through the now instantly recognizable fiddle solo.

The audience is singing as loud as the band as the song enters its patriotic verse and Brown gets the audience singing even louder on the last chorus and has them speedily bouncing and clapping along as he jams out the end of the song.

“Thank you all so much for giving us our jobs and for all the love you show us by buying our music or a ticket to our show,” he says. “It’s much appreciated.”

Brown starts rhythmically strumming and patting his guitar easing into “Goodbye in Her Eyes,” a song that through the structure of its harmonies is reminiscent of 1980s Alabama.

The band – with help from the audience – sings “Jump Right In” with Brown splitting the stadium at the end of the song. He has one side of the crowd sing with him and the other side echo the words.

And another surprise!

“What a privilege to get to play a song with our special guest right now,” Brown says by way of introducing Kenny Rogers. “That’s a legend right there people, come on.”

Rogers kicks off “The Gambler” as fans clap along. He and Brown take turns on verses and fans loudly join in on the chorus.

Brown says: “This song kind of tells the story of my life right here, it’s called ‘The Day That I Die.’”

Next up, Zac Brown Band jams into “Keep Me in Mind” and still has fans up dancing as members make this song – like the rest of them – look effortless as they nail their harmonies and take turns musically on solos.

And here comes Kid Rock, Brown’s second surprise guest.

The two close the set with a high-energy cover of “American Band” as fans clap, arms in the air. The song garners some of the night’s loudest applause.